By Emily Anne Epstein

PUBLISHED:09:16 EST, 29  September 2012| UPDATED:11:21 EST, 29 September 2012

The United States Military conducted top  secret experiments on the citizens of St. Louis, Missouri, for years, exposing  them to radioactive compounds, a researcher has claimed.

While it was known that the government  sprayed ‘harmless’ zinc cadmium silfide  particles over the general population in St Louis,  Professor Lisa Martino-Taylor, a sociologist at St. Louis Community College,  claims that a radioactive additive was also mixed with the  compound.

She has accrued detailed descriptions as well  as photographs of the spraying which exposed the  unwitting public, predominantly in low-income and minority communities,  to radioactive particles.

Test: Sociologist Lisa Martino-Taylor, right, a  sociologist at St. Louis Community College, has spent years tracking down  declassified documents to uncover the lengths which the US experimented on  people without their knowing. At left, cadmium sulfide, the ‘harmless’ chemical  sprayed on the public is pictured

‘The study was secretive for reason. They  didn’t have volunteers stepping up and saying yeah, I’ll breathe zinc cadmium  sulfide with radioactive particles,’ said Professor Martino-Taylor to KSDK.

Through her research,  she found photographs of how the particles were distributed from 1953-1954 and  1963-1965.

In Corpus Christi, the chemical was dropped  from airplanes over large swathes of city.  In St Louis, the Army put  chemical sprayers on buildings, like schools and public housing projects, and  mounted them in station wagons for mobile use.

Despite the extent of the experiment, local  politicians were not notified about the content of the testing. The people of St  Louis were told that the Army was testing smoke screens to protect cities from a  Russian attack.

‘It was pretty shocking. The level of  duplicity and secrecy. Clearly they went to great lengths to deceive people,’  Professor Martino-Taylor said.

She accrued hundreds of pages of declassified  information, which she has made available online.

In her research, she found that the greatest  concentration of spraying in St Louis was at the Pruitt-Igoe public housing  complex, which was home to 10,000 low income residents.  She said that 70  per cent of those residents were children under the age of 12.

Professor Martino-Taylor became  interested  in the topic after hearing independent reports of cancers  among city residents  living in those areas at the time.

‘This was a violation of all medical ethics,  all international codes, and the military’s own policy at that time,’ said  Professor Martino-Taylor.

‘There is a lot of evidence that shows people  in St. Louis and the city, in particular minority communities, were subjected to  military testing that was connected to a larger radiological weapons testing  project.’

Previous investigations of the compound were  rebuffed by the military, which insisted it was safe.

However, Professor Martino-Taylor believes  the documents she’s uncovered, prove the zinc cadmium silfide was also mixed  with radioactive particles.

She has linked the St Louis testing to a  now-defunct company called US Radium. The controversial company came under fire,  and numerous lawsuits, after several of its workers were exposed to dangerous  levels of radioactive materials in its fluorescent paint.

 

Contaminated: The Army has admitted that it added a  fluorescent substance to the ‘harmless’ compound, but whether or not the  additive was radioactive remains classified

Exposed: In her research, she found that the greatest  concentration of spraying in St Louis was at the Pruit-Igoe public housing  complex, which was home to 10,000 low income residents. She said that 70 per  cent of those residents were children under the age of 12

‘US Radium had this reputation where they had  been found legally liable for producing a radioactive powdered paint that killed  many young women who painted fluorescent watch tiles,’ said Professor  Martino-Taylor.

In her findings, one of the compounds that  was sprayed upon the public was called ‘FP2266′, according to the army’s  documents, and was manufactured by US Radium. The compound, also known as Radium  226, was the same one that killed and sickened many of the US Radium  workers.

The Army has admitted that it added a  fluorescent substance to the ‘harmless’ compound, but whether or not the  additive was radioactive remains classified.

Professor Martino-Taylor has not been able to  find if the Army ever followed up on the long term health of the residents  exposed to the compound. In 1972, the  government destroyed the Pruitt-Igoe houses.

Upon learning of the professor’s findings,  Missouri lawmakers called on the Army to detail the tests.

‘I share and understand the renewed anxiety  of members of the St. Louis communities that were exposed to the spraying of  (the chemicals) as part of Army tests during the Cold War,’ Senator Claire  McCaskill wrote to Army Secretary John McHugh.

‘The impacted communities were not informed  of the tests at the time and are reasonably anxious about the long term health  impacts the tests may have had on those exposed to the airborne  chemicals.’

Senator Roy Blunt called the findings  ‘absolutely shocking.’

‘The idea that thousands of Missourians were  unwillingly exposed to harmful materials in order to determine their health  effects is absolutely shocking. It should come as no surprise that these  individuals and their families are demanding answers of government officials,’  Senator Blunt said.

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